


Where Are You Now (My Dumb Dumb Boys)

by attheendoftheday



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 14:00:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10992384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheendoftheday/pseuds/attheendoftheday
Summary: After they leave the Ministry - after Harry is back at Hogwarts, after the rest of the aurors and the Order repair the glass and the rubble of the lobby, after the necessary damage control is done to reassure the public that Lord Voldemort has indeed returned - Remus apparates back to his flat.(Character study after Sirius's death.)





	Where Are You Now (My Dumb Dumb Boys)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short thing I wrote in a day, unbeta'd, so bear with me. Inspired by "Dum Dum Boys" by Iggy Pop, which just about broke my heart.

After they leave the Ministry - after Harry is back at Hogwarts, after the rest of the aurors and the Order repair the glass and the rubble of the lobby, after the necessary damage control is done to reassure the public that Lord Voldemort has indeed returned - Remus apparates back to his flat.

He doesn’t splinch himself. This surprises him. He thinks of the warnings they were given in their sixth year. Apparating under the influence is illegal, as is apparating unlicensed. Both factors make it hard to focus, the willpower weakened, more susceptible to slipping, to falling. The night before all four of them were scheduled to take their test, Sirius had stolen firewhiskey from the kitchens, snuck the rest of the boys into Hogsmeade, and apparated every two feet down the road.

Remus opens the door with the key that the Muggle landlady gave him a month ago, as she tried to inconspicuously avoid touching his hand. The metal is cold against his skin. His coat drops to the floor.

He puts on a record - _The Idiot_ , Iggy Pop - and rolls a joint and tries not to think of how this is all too familiar.

The routine is comforting, if only in the consistency of it all, the framework organizing the emptiness. The joint between his fingers and the roughness of the couch against his back are two walls containing him, pressing the air in his lungs in and out rhythmically. He is the opposite of a gas. He has a volume and no matter to fill it.

He replaces the void with the heat of the smoke, lets the sickly sweetness wash through him.

 _Things have been tough without the dumb dumb boys._ Iggy is singing in his ear, permeating his brain. _They looked as if they - put the whole world down -_

He had been fourteen when he smoked for the first time. They had sat in James’s bedroom in his big warm house as snow fluttered down outside. Peter had brought his Muggle record player and played some horrific Christmas song on repeat, and Remus had felt dizzy, and he looked down to see a head in his lap. Sirius had laughed and buried his face in Remus’s denim-covered knee.

_Where are you now my dumb dumb boys -_

This had been worse the first time, Remus thinks. He can’t remember when he last blinked. This had to have been worse. He should be numb to the grief by now.

_Are you - alive or dead -_

The first time was November 1, 1981. He had been twenty one years old. He had put on a record by King Crimson and sat against a wall. He didn’t smoke a joint, because he had never learned to roll one. There had always been someone with defter hands.

_\- have you left me the last of the dumb dumb daze -_

He hadn’t heard about the trial yet. He hadn’t talked to Sirius for three weeks; Peter, for months. All he could think was _JamesLilyJamesLilyJamesLilyLilyHarryJames_ as King Crimson played on.

_\- and the boys broke down -_

He broke that record two nights later, when Dumbledore apparated at his front door, peering at Remus through his spectacles, face like stone, saying words that didn't belong together, like "Sirius" and "betrayed" and "Azkaban". He broke it while listening to The Stooges, timing the stomps of his foot to the growled lyrics of _now I want - to be your dog -_ and when that was done, and the vinyl lay shattered in pieces pressed into the rug, he broke The Stooges, too.

_\- da da da it’s been - a dumdumdum day -_

Remus’s fingers let the join fall to the floor. He doesn’t care much where it lands.

_Where are you now - when I need your noise -_

Sirius had ridden him to this song, after Hogwarts, before the war. It was two days before the moon and Remus had poured the dangerous, reckless energy into bucking up into Sirius, his fingers leaving bruises on hips. Remus’s left hand had grabbed Sirius’s necklace - the silver one he had bought him for his seventeenth birthday - and his right hand yanked his long black hair, bringing their faces inches apart, and Sirius had _howled_ into his mouth loud enough that Remus would have worried about the effectiveness of their Silencing charm if not for the fact that he was coming so hard he saw stars.

_Now I’m looking for - the dumb dumb boys -_

Remus wonders who will be next. He wonders how much more he has left to lose. He wonders how many more times he will find himself on the couch or the floor, listening to records and trying not to vomit.

_The walls close in - and I need some noise._

He doesn’t weep until long after the record stops turning.


End file.
